Damascus voters rejected four comprehensive plans in four years by at least two-thirds each time -- one in 2011 and three more in Tuesday's primary election

Yet city officials think they can get voters to yes in November by tweaking one or two plans that lost on Tuesday.

The City Council placed the plans on the May primary ballot as a solution to end conflict in the city. The idea was that, with options, surely residents would be able to finally pick a comprehensive plan that the council could adopt as the clock is ticking.

If no plan is approved this year, the city stands to lose $300,000 in state-shared revenues, and residents and businesses will remain unable to develop their property.

A comprehensive plan is required before Damascus can move forward with zoning, economic development, capital projects and become a true city.

Without a plan, the city has become essentially a taxing district, with little avenue to spend the money on capital projects after residents voted to require a vote on major spending in 2012.

Mayor's Plan to advance

Perhaps the first sign that two plans created by the mayor or council president might fail was when Councilors Jim DeYoung and Randy Shannon joined the members of the city planning commission to gather enough signatures to place the third plan on the ballot.

The City Council previously rejected the plan approved by the planning commission, created with months of input and critique from residents. The council refused to refer the plan to voters, which is a unique requirement in Damascus. Any comprehensive plan must first be approved by voters before adoption.

"We didn't want to have anything to do with the initiative as a council," Mayor Steve Spinnett said. "If they want to run another initiative, any citizen can do that, but they're on their own as a citizen."

Instead, the runner-up plan is likely tobe moved on: the Mayor's Plan, created by Spinnett and a small group of collaborators.

Spinnett's plan received 33.7 of the vote, with 66.3 percent voting against it. He said he thinks voters will approve it in November.

Spinnett doesn't see the "no" votes on all three plans as a message from voters. Instead, he thinks that probably most voters said yes to one plan and no to the other two.

That would require everyone the 30 percent of registered voters who cast a ballot in the May primary to have each picked one of the three plans in similar percentages. Except for the third plan, which only earned 11.7 percent "yes" votes.

Spinnett said the three-plan ballot was doomed to fail, but if one plan is on the ballot alone, it will pass.

Citizen's Plan to reappear

It likely won't be the only plan on the ballot, though. Councilor Jim De Young said he and the members of the Citizens for Moving Damascus Forward group plan to gather the 305 signatures needed for the "Citizen's Plan" to reappear in November.

"It would be best, of course, for there to just be one plan on the ballot to vote on in the fall and not divide the vote," De Young said.

But, his group is frustrated the councilors won't agree to forward the plan with the highest percentage of "yes" votes, despite claiming to want a comprehensive plan Damascus residents can agree upon.

"It is indeed frustrating, but that's been the story of Damascus for the last four years or so," De Young said.

At city council meetings, De Young often sympathizes with the residents who supported disincorporation and are also frustrated. But he, and his group, see compromising on one comprehensive plan as the way forward.

De Young points to the looming penalty of loss of funds -- or worse -- from the state Land Conservation and Development Committee if the city blows another deadline to adopt a plan. The city has already missed several, and state officials are losing patience.

A self-proclaimed optimist, De Young interprets Tuesday's election results as a demand to dissolve the city, but he just doesn't see that as an option.

"There's no rationality behind it because the city is not just going to go away," De Young said. "The best thing to do is find the right plan and compromise and go forward."

Residents just want out

A growing number of residents call that idea nonsense.

"It is beyond comprehension that any elected representative would advocate placing 'The Best Loser' on another ballot," said resident Chris Hawes. "Our representative democracy does not award victory to a defeated issue simply because it didn't lose as badly as some other."

Hawes rallied residents to vote "no" on all three measures. He wants the city to disband.

In November 2013, Damascus residents voted by a 2-to-1 ratio to disincorporate the city.

State law requires a majority of registered voters to cast a ballot in the disincorporation election, and then for a majority of those residents to vote "yes."

"The citizens of Damascus no longer trust the city council and will fight all attempts to pass any future comprehensive plans, especially a plan that only received 990 "yes" votes out of 6,400 registered voters," said community organizer Jim Syring. "The people have organized, the people are rising, the will of the people of Damascus will prevail."

Syring is an advocate for House Bill 4029, which spawned a secessionist movement in the city. After the disincorporation vote failed, Syring and other neighbors threw their support behind 4029, which allows residents on the border of Damascus who live within a half-mile of Happy Valley or Gresham to de-annex.

There are six months for city councilors to change the minds of some of Damascus' most active -- and likely to vote -- residents. Spinnett said he is ready to listen to suggestions to improve his plan before it's back up for election. He plans to meet with some of the framers of the Citizens Plan to possibly incorporate some of their ideas into his.

"I would like to accommodate people's concerns, if they have a real legitimate concerns," Spinnett said.

De Young indicated he could be open to creating one plan worthy of the ballot -- but that'd it'd require a lot of compromise on everyone's part.

The secessionist movement leaders are done compromising.

"If the actions of the council serve no other purpose, it is to illustrate what happens when elected representatives decide that they are the arbiters of the people's future, and the people can, and will be ignored," Hawes said.